


Beautiful Delusions

by spookyawards_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-09
Updated: 2003-10-09
Packaged: 2019-04-27 07:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14420403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyawards_archivist/pseuds/spookyawards_archivist
Summary: "If I try hard enough I can remember a few moments, discontinuous fragments of a world before you.  But they feel dreamlike, illusive.  If I try to bring them into focus, really see them clearly, the reticent memories flitter away like so many translucent ghosts."





	Beautiful Delusions

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).

 

Beautiful Delusions

## Beautiful Delusions

### by Starla Dear

Title: Beautiful Delusions  
Author: Starla Dear Category: V/A/R  
Rating: R  
Keywords: MSR, Scully POV  
Spoilers: Nada  
Archiving: I would be honored beyond measure. 

Disclaimer: I own nothing - absolutely nothing. I rent a lot of things, but own nothing, least of all The X-Files. 

Summary: "If I try hard enough I can remember a few moments, discontinuous fragments of a world before you. But they feel dreamlike, illusive. If I try to bring them into focus, really see them clearly, the reticent memories flitter away like so many translucent ghosts." 

* * *

It's hard for me to remember a time when I didn't love you,  
when I didn't crave your touch or the peace your presence  
alone brings to me. It feels as if the time before you were  
another existence. So much so, that I sometimes forget I've  
only lived only once and not two separate lifetimes. If I  
try hard enough I can remember a few moments, a handful of  
discontinuous fragments of a world before you. But they  
feel dreamlike, illusive. If I try to bring them into  
focus, really see them clearly, the reticent memories  
flitter away like so many translucent ghosts.

I can remember my mother as she herds her four children through the front door of our cinderblock military issue house. She's clucking her tongue on the roof of her mouth and trying valiantly to refrain from taking the Lord's name in vain on the way to mass. She wants me to wear the yellow dress; I'll only wear the pink. Melissa's whining because she doesn't like church anymore, and Bill's drawn big black circles around Charlie's eyes with permanent marker. Mom wants to put us all in a big cardboard box and send us special delivery to her absentee sailor. But when the chaplain greets us in front of the church, she smiles beautifully, as if she's had the most peaceful of mornings. I can see you there in your preppy clothes, lounging in your little boy innocence on the steps of the base chapel, pulling my hair out of the big pink bow and grinning wickedly. I yell and Bill threatens to beat you up, but I won't let him hurt you. I've seen grand adventures in your eyes, like the stories I've heard of the great mariners, and I want to follow you on your next voyage. I want you to pull my hair some more. 

I remember Mr. Miller as he hands me the big blue ribbon for winning the school science fair. The grand prize. I made a battery out of potatoes and it can power a light bulb. I'm so excited because I'm only in fourth grade and I beat the rest of the school. Dad isn't coming; he's anchored somewhere near a place called Turkey. Mom says she's proud of me, but we both know she doesn't really understand how my project works. And she goes to tell Charlie that his project is just as good, even if he isn't getting a ribbon. You walk by my booth with that smug look on your face, asking why I bothered to make a battery when you can buy them in store. You made a model of the solar system with UFOs circling earth. I think you're weird - why would you worry about things like planets and aliens when you can make something useful? But you've got this crazy gleam in your eye and I want to talk to you even if you are a boy, even if you do think there are such things as aliens. But your mom comes to get you and you follow her out of the auditorium without looking up from your shoes. Your dad isn't there either. Is he in the navy, too? I don't want you to go. Don't leave me. I've already lost you too many times. 

I remember the cool air and the abandoned barn and my first real kiss. I am not as pretty as Melissa and this dating thing is so new to me. But you finally passed the interview with my dad, and we are finally alone. Your hand is on my back, guiding me through the dark, broken-down building as you recite Edgar Allen Poe. I know you're trying to scare me; you probably think that will help you get lucky. You should know, though, that I've already read these stories and that I know the owners of this farm - I am not going to get scared. Not of ghosts anyway. You should know that you don't need an excuse to kiss me. That's all I have wanted since I first saw you and your sad eyes and pouty lips. That's all I've thought about since you came by my locker and asked me to go steady with you. But I know you are nervous, so I lean into you and bury my face in your chest as if I am really frightened and when I look up at you, you know it's o.k. to kiss me. And you're suddenly so close to me, your adolescent soft lips barely touching mine. It's so new, kissing someone who isn't family, kissing someone on the lips. It's not at all like the practice-kissing on my pillow. I want to do it again. I want it to last forever. 

When did I lose the ability to distinguish my life from yours? Somehow you've become so much a part of me, so entangled in my existence, that I can no longer live without you. I can't remember ever living without you. And I can no longer trust even my own memories; reality and fantasy are so irrevocably intermingled that they are beyond distinction. I know these memories can't possibly be true, though. You couldn't have been there at the base chapel. There was no plastic solar system with flying saucers, no mysterious boy whose words teased and eyes smiled at me. My first kiss wasn't given to you. It should have been. I was rightfully yours, even then. But it wasn't the whisper of your mouth against mine or the graze of your long, skinny fingers on my back. It was someone else, a faceless boy with sandy blonde hair and dark brown eyes. All those years, through each moment, we were a continent apart. These beautifully artificial memories aren't mine to hold. 

I remember the caress of soft sheets and the sounds of ecstasy as I make love for the first time. It's not hurried sex in the dorm room during visiting hours. It's not frantic fucking in a pay-by-the-hour hotel between hospital rotations. It's slow and sensuous and beautiful. We are beautiful. Your skin is soft and rough and so very hot. My hands are like ice against the heat of your back, but you don't move away. You move only closer, ever closer, burying your face into my neck, licking my flesh and nibbling on my collar bone. I can't catch my breath, the oxygen escapes me and I know I should care about that, but I don't. I want only to breathe you in, absorb you through my skin, take you inside of me. I only want more of you. I am desperate for you. I lean my head back into goose down and arch my back, thrusting my neck into your lips and my breasts into your hands. I want more, so much more - your mind, your body, your soul. I want to own you, be owned by you. I want nothing other than to be joined to you in every way. My hands trail down your back in a furious path to your hips, embedding precious bits of your torn skin under my fingernails. I press your body into mine, demanding so much more of you, offering you all of me. Your moan is loud against my shoulder and I can feel the vibrations as they ripple through my body. My name is pushed from your lips, imbued with every declaration of love, with limitless commitment, with the promise of forever. I return these infinite vows to you, your name on my tongue, my legs wrapped around you, my body opening to receive yours as you push inside of me. And I take you in, accepting your gift just as eagerly as you accept my offering. And I am complete in that moment, when I am finally one with my perfect other. 

I am terrified now that even this memory is false, that my treacherous mind has deceived me again. I am afraid to open my eyes, wary of reaching over to find the bed empty. I cannot bear it if this, too, is only a beautiful delusion, a construct of my imagination. I slide my hand slowly to where your body should be, hoping against hope to find you there, desperate in my need to make contact with you. I am frantic for proof of your presence, for a physical connection, no longer able to trust my own mind or memory. I can no longer put my faith in the abstract or unseen. There is only one true and trustworthy thing in my life, only one thing in which I believe. You are my only truth; I trust only you, the physicality of you. 

**END**

* * *

Feedback: Come on and write me. I want it, need it, hunger for it. O.k. maybe I am just bored and want to chit chat about TXF. Anyway, should you feel so inclined, my address is   
  


#### If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Starla Dear


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